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5 things we especially liked on Quartz
🙋 Is this the right role for you? In Quartz at Work, a trio of contributors from the Stone Mantel consultancy suggest four things any job candidate should ask about in an interview. Beyond conveying your wonderful sense of curiosity, the questions—based on research into what people find most satisfying and meaningful in their work—should yield answers that will help you determine if the job and culture are a fit for you.
💸 This time it’s profitable. The IPO plans from Instacart, Arm, and Klavijo herald a new era in the markets—one in which would-be public companies are able to show prospective shareholders a track record of making money. Michelle Cheng explains when and why investors stopped putting growth ahead of earnings, and how a new generation of tech unicorns is responding.
🗣️ Language of resistance. The publisher of a fictional story accused of violating national security laws in Hong Kong is shutting down after police raided its founder’s former home. But it wasn’t just the plot that got the publisher in trouble. Mary Hui explains why Cantonese, the lingua franca of Hong Kong, is also increasingly a target for Chinese authoritarians.
🚧 Innovator implications. When Brendan Babb was named chief innovation officer for Anchorage, Alaska, he knew of about 20 counterparts in other city governments. Seven years later, he estimates there are as many as 200 people in jobs like his. Babb spoke with Nate DiCamillo about the responsibilities of the role, the projects he’s most excited about, and the effects of new federal spending bills funneling billions to state and local governments for infrastructure upgrades.
🏐 No, not soccer. A new world record has been set for attendance at a women’s sporting event, and it had nothing to do with the FIFA women’s World Cup. Julia Malleck reports on the college volleyball event that took Nebraska by storm and drew more than 92,000 sports fans to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Memorial Stadium.
5 great stories from elsewhere
👁️ The stuff of dreams. The connection between our muscle twitches and brain activity in REM sleep is even trippier than we thought. In The New Yorker, Amanda Gefter delves into the new research upending our conventional understanding of how “dream debris” influences the body.
🛍️ What we got wrong about retail. E-commerce wasn’t a death knell for brick-and-mortar merchandising. Far from it. The US has seen 1,000 more store openings than closings this year, despite high-profile bankruptcies by chains such as Bed Bath & Beyond. In The Atlantic, Amanda Mull examines the ongoing rise of in-person retail and lays out the simple math separating industry winners from losers.
🏭 Postindustrial adventures in advanced manufacturing. In American Affairs, David Adler and William B. Bonvillian explain how the US decoupled innovation from industrial policy, and where that leaves the country as it now attempts to revive its manufacturing sector, positioned for a new technological age.
👩⚕️ Medical maven. Part profile and part primer on the mysteries of long covid, Lisa Miller’s Intelligencer piece for New York magazine looks at the latest work of Yale internist Lisa Sanders, who authors the Diagnosis column in the New York Times, inspired the TV series House, and has now turned her attention to one of the great mysteries stemming from the coronavirus pandemic: how to help patients with long-haul health effects.
🍉 Sweet season. War and wildfires have done their best to conceal it, but the joy of summer remains. To prove it, The Globe and Mail gave disposable cameras to kids from four families across Canada and asked them to capture their favorite things about the season. In what has “felt like a terribly grown-up summer,” the snapshots of ice cream trucks, starfish, and sunny days with the refreshment of a garden hose will remind you of the season’s bounty and the wonders of seeing it all through the eyes of a child.
🗓️ What to watch for this week
Here’s what our newsroom will be watching next week:
- Monday: The Africa Climate Week and Summit begins in Nairobi; the US observes Labor Day
- Wednesday: GameStop reports earnings
- Thursday: The 104th season of the National Football League kicks off in the US
Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, climate disaster photos, and unique hotel site reviews. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Heather Landy, Susan Howson, and Morgan Haefner.